Radical and Qualitative Changes Needed in All Areas of State Governance, Says MP

It is already time for the government of the Republic of Armenia to present a comprehensive analysis of the current situation, evaluations, special conclusions, and also forecasts for the future. This was stated by MP Mikael Melkumyan from the Prosperous Armenia Party on his Facebook page.

He particularly noted, “Considering that our republic is unfortunately a leader in the region for pandemic indicators, with tens of times more infected individuals and deaths compared to Georgia, our society must understand the cost of all this, what the main reasons are for the issues related to healthcare security, as well as economic and social challenges.”

“Radical and qualitative changes are necessary in all areas of state governance. It is not only about personnel; it is also about the institution of accountability for the fulfillment, non-fulfillment, or incomplete fulfillment of rights and obligations,” he added.

As the first eight months of 2020 have already passed, it is becoming clear that the economic decline is much greater than even the adjusted figures of the Republic of Armenia’s state budget for 2020. We warned about this during discussions at the National Assembly session of the Republic of Armenia.

“Even if we ignore the impact of the months of the pandemic from March 15 to now and discuss the investment landscape of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020, it becomes evident that the outflow of investments from the Republic of Armenia was enormous. In this way, in 2019, foreign direct investments were almost halved compared to 2018, although they remained in positive territory. However, in the first quarter of 2020, when the pandemic was not yet present or only appeared in the second half of March, we already see a significant reduction in both direct investments and total investments, with negative figures,” he remarked.

This situation has never been seen in the economic history of newly independent Armenia. Thus, in the first quarter of 2020, total investments decreased by 73.6 billion drams (+56 billion decreased to -12 billion), while direct investments fell by 20.2 billion drams. Unfortunately, similar data for the first half of 2020 will be published only on October 5, 2020, which is 95 days after the end of the first half of the year. This is incomprehensible. Last year, the data were published after 65 days.

It is unclear whether the government of the Republic of Armenia should not know in due time what the investments were in order to carry out relevant measures. Thus, the government of the Republic of Armenia should present a comprehensive programmatic message - who did not do what and why? Did the support programs serve their purpose or not? Could this crisis situation have been avoided? Are the reasons conceptual or personnel-related? Or both? Let’s wait and see.